Whenever an airliner crashes, investigators often look for a “black box,” a well-shielded recording device that stores cockpit voice recordings and information about the airplane's components, in order to reconstruct the final moments before the disaster. Recovered data from the black box is used by investigators to help determine whether the cause of the disaster was pilot error, mechanical failure, military or terrorist action, or some other cause.
Office buildings and apartment buildings, despite often having similar value to airliners both economically and in numbers of human lives at risk, typically lack any similar standard system and operating procedure for obtaining and analyzing data after a fire, natural disaster, or other significant damage to a building. The lack of adequate, real-time, reliable data makes search and rescue operations very difficult for first responders. First responders and other emergency personnel often have little or no information regarding how a building has been damaged or collapsed as a result of, for example, an earthquake or natural disaster.